Paul Walker’s Father Says His Son Was ‘Kind of Reckless’ With His Life

Time heals all wounds, but it doesn’t heal them quickly. Paul Walker‘s father knows this all too well, and recently he spoke out about his struggle since his son’s tragic death from a car crash in 2013. “I’m pretty much a bit of a recluse. I don’t go out as much anymore because Paul’s death took a lot out of me,” Paul Walker Sr. explained in a new interview with the Daily Mail. “I’ve got my good friends, who I stay in touch with, and they’ve been so supportive and nice to me. The best way I know how to look at it is that God just took him home. That’s the biggest comfort I can find.”

Still, that hardly means that Walker Sr. doesn’t think about what might have gone wrong on that fateful day.

“I drive my car round there, sometimes at weekends, and it’s just so quiet out there. It could be a racetrack,” he said. “In my mind, I don’t know, but I was riding my bike out there and I had a sneezing fit. I sneezed like five times. Your mind wanders, I wonder if that happened to Roger Rodas? Or a bee flew into the Porsche as they were riding that distracted him? Maybe a deer ran across the road and they swerved trying to avoid it?”

The one thing Walker Sr. knows for sure is that Roger was a “skilled” driver. “I mean you hear speeds from 50 mph to 100 mph. You hear both. You just don’t know. And the fact that Paul’s injuries were very survivable — he had a broken jaw, broken collarbone, broken wrist, and broken arm. All things that he would’ve survived had the car not caught fire.”

Walker Sr. isn’t alone in speculating about what led to his son’s untimely death. “I think people will be speculating about Paul’s death forever,” he said. “I watched a documentary about James Dean’s death not a long time ago, and this will be just the same. Paul was kind of reckless with his life. Whether it was performing his own stunts — he’d tell stuntmen, ‘I’m not afraid of anything’ — Paul did stuff that stuntmen wouldn’t do.” One time, Walker Sr. even intervened to try to keep his son out of harm’s way.

“I remember talking to one of Paul’s really greatest friends, Oakley Lehman. I said to Oakley, ‘Don’t be afraid to grab Paul by his shoulders and say, “Don’t be a stupid idiot,'” Walker Sr. recalled before adding, “Paul must’ve had a sure belief in the afterlife — that’s all I can tell you about that.”

The Fast and the Furious franchise that launched Walker to fame has continued since his death, though his father has had mixed feelings about watching the subsequent films.

“I wasn’t sure if I wanted to see it,” Walker Sr. said. “But when I did — thankfully I was surrounded by friends, some who knew Paul since when he was a little kid — and it was really wonderful. We all really liked it. It was a very fun movie. You know, I think Paul would’ve loved it. I can see him saying to me, ‘Dad, you gotta see it; it’s crazy.’ That’s exactly what he would’ve said.” Walker Sr. added, “I think the cast and the directors did Paul proud. I hope the cast all become a bunch of old, toothless men before they stop making them. Paul would be very happy that they made another one.” The way the franchise has dominated box offices worldwide, Walker Sr. very well may get his wish.

Walker’s cast mates also shared a close tie to the fallen star — Vin Diesel in particular. The action hero named his daughter Paulina in honor of Walker, and has repeatedly paid tribute to him during awards acceptance speeches over the past several years.

The pain of the loss of his child still feels very real to Walker Sr., however. Now, three and a half years after his son died, he realizes that Paul’s death has had a profound impact on him. “I’ve become much more considerate, just like he was. I’m more considerate of people, and I realized some of the things he said,” Walker Sr. revealed. “I keep a journal, and I remember the things Paul said when he was a little fellow, and write them down.” He added that as a boy, Paul was very “profound” and “self-reflective.”